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Old 26th October 2017, 07:33   #106
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

Most telecom operators we have to live with suck.

I had similar experience with Airtel when they charged me for roaming when I had not even traveled outside the city.

While they admitted the mistake they said nothing can be done now and asked to write back after 1 month. This was a ridiculous response.

Then I filed a porting request. This works like a charm these days. In a few minutes someone called and he himself ridiculed the customer support's answer. Within next 15 minutes he reverted the faulty roaming charges.

You may want to take this route. It is the only thing that works these days with pesky telecom services issues.
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Old 26th October 2017, 07:44   #107
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

Best thing is to call the customer care and tell them clearly that you have not used the data pack as they had not enabled it for you . If they need proof you can ask them to check your usage units. IF the executive cannot resolve it ask him/her to transfer the call to their floor lead. They will help you. Its a painful process as others have mentioned.

I had to deal with them for 3 months for getting my landline disconnected. This even after their team lead had said that it will be disconnected within 3 days and it took 3 months!
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Old 26th October 2017, 09:05   #108
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

In case customer care is addressing the issue write and email to 121@in.airtel.com and if still not addressed contact Mr Pandian
appellate officer (assuming you are in bangalore). generally this works for me with airtel.
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Old 26th October 2017, 09:17   #109
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

Thanks everyone for your feedback and suggestions. I am seriously considering to move from Airtel to another service provider.
Airtel has frequent connection drops and data packet loss issues and have become very unreliable in Bangalore.
I am sending all my communications in email to keep record of my actions. Worst case I plan to go to Airtel shop and give a written complaint and collect an acknowledgement.

Does filing complains in consumercomplaints.in help in any manner? Or any legal action for that matter?

One another question I have is on the MNP. Do I have to clear all the dues before Airtel allows number portability. My bill due date is Nov 8th, but want to initiate MNP ASAP.

My frustration is not on the money I lost, but the torture I had to be through on a self arranged holiday with my family. I had serious dependency on data plan to move around in city like Paris and Rome. I was using public transport and wanted to plan each day as it comes. I knew these cities well enough and all I needed was support of a mobile with data to plan stuff on the go. First three days were a mess without data. I had to stick to places I knew very well and get back to hotel early evening to avoid any surprises. Most mornings were spent on calling Airtel and they repeatedly fooled me
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Old 26th October 2017, 09:59   #110
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

Submit a porting request ASAP. 9 out of 10 times, especially for post-paid customers, this works. They will call you themselves, listen to your problem patiently and will provide immediate resolution. And in addition to that, they will most likely give you free data or a cheaper post-paid scheme too.

I have had my share of experiences with Vodafone and airtel. Till the time it was Hutch, the customer service was excellent and prompt, once it changed to Vodafone, service have downgraded substantially. One thing I learnt - Don't be a loyal customer, be ready to port if you are not satisfied. Jio has (at least for the time being) made the customers king again.
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Old 26th October 2017, 10:04   #111
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

One thing I have realized dealing with Airtel/Vodafone over the last decade; Customer Care over the phone or at the store is utterly useless.

For any and every complaint or service request, I write straight to the Appellate Officer. And in every email, I mention why I have bypassed Customer Care and even the Nodal officer.

I have learnt this the hard way and contacting the Appellate Officer saves quite some hassle.
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Old 26th October 2017, 10:23   #112
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

I have had poor experiences with Airtel, including the international data pack issue. But every time I call the Customer Care and talk sternly, they resolve the issue within an hour (except for 1 case where I had to make a follow-up call after 2 days). In case of billing issues and over-charging, the credit my postpaid account with the amount in contention, along with the GST applicable on it.

From my experience, their CC service is among the best ones. On the other hand, my wife had extremely bitter experience with Vodafone (Gurgaon circle). Finally I had to drop a series of mails to the CC mail, keeping the Appellate authority in the loop and it worked.

In the past, issues with companies such as Vodafone, Iffco Tokio and ACT fibrenet, pestering with daily mails and looping senior authority has always worked for me.
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Old 26th October 2017, 10:31   #113
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

Quote:
Originally Posted by libranof1987 View Post

I have learnt this the hard way and contacting the Appellate Officer saves quite some hassle.
Thanks again. I have written to Appellate Officer of Karnataka. I am not going to let go this matter easily and all the support and suggestions I am receiving from this forum is very helpful.

I am initiating MNP as well today.

I will share updates as this case progresses.
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Old 26th October 2017, 10:52   #114
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

One thing about Airtel is that their phone support is useless. The email support is slightly better and are also empowered to do things the phone support cannot. So if not already done, send all the details via email also. Added benefit of having a written record also.
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Old 26th October 2017, 11:13   #115
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

Please write to the nodal office of your region. I have got complaints resolved faster. The Airtel store and 121 customer care cannot do much.
If you're happy with their services and network coverage do not MNP yet. Each operator has it's fair share of problems.
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Old 26th October 2017, 12:19   #116
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

OMG! My recent trip to Bangkok, I've enabled the 10days Roaming pack (1199) which consists of 3GB data and 250 mins free to India. I'm yet to get the bill for this month.
However, I've got few messages earlier saying some bill amount and followed by a SMS asking to ignore the previous message. Fingers crossed till the bill generated.
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Old 26th October 2017, 14:45   #117
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

I swore off Airtel a long time ago. Absolutely horrible service provider to be with. Their customer care is just gross with no proper resolution coming in spite of multiple calls and emails. I wonder if their execs are even trained to handle customer calls because from my experience it did not seem so. When ever I called the customer care, I would be answered by an exec in the local language (not that I did not know it or that I had a problem) but then whats the point of having a language selection earlier in the call if you are anyway going to direct me one particular language?

Forget everything else. The lowlife that Airtel is, they did not even allow to port the number to another provider and kept delaying releasing the number in spite of multiple requests and reminders. This was when all the dues were completely cleared. Finally had to shoot off an email to TRAI copying their customer care email and the connection was released within an extremely short span. This is the kind of dirty business they do!

I made sure there is not a single connection of Airtel in my family and in my immediate/extended family. Forget cellular connection, I made sure we did not have anything of Airtel (Internet/ Digital TV etc.) and I will never have one. I have since moved to Idea for all the connections and in the last 7 odd years the relationship has been a really really happy one. I really dont think Airtel knows how to business apart from providing cheaper plans with hidden caveats

Last edited by centaur : 26th October 2017 at 14:47.
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Old 26th October 2017, 14:56   #118
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

Quote:
Originally Posted by sj_koova View Post
Thanks everyone for your feedback and suggestions. I am seriously considering to move from Airtel to another service provider.
I have had very good experience with Airtel over nearly 8 yrs of usage. I suggest you pursue this on email through the escalation chain provided in their website. I don't see why they would not resolve this especially since you haven't used the service ( and they were unable to provide it in the first place ).

Once, when I had a roaming related issue on billing, the same was resolved within a few days whereas a similar issue with Voda took nearly 3 months ( but eventually resolved with a reversal of Rs40,000 ! )

Quote:
Originally Posted by ashis89 View Post
I have had poor experiences with Airtel, including the international data pack issue. But every time I call the Customer Care and talk sternly, they resolve the issue within an hour (except for 1 case where I had to make a follow-up call after 2 days).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rajeevraj View Post
One thing about Airtel is that their phone support is useless. The email support is slightly better and are also empowered to do things the phone support cannot. So if not already done, send all the details via email also. Added benefit of having a written record also.
I too have used the email support option always. Worked better than phone support + audit trail.


Quote:
Originally Posted by centaur View Post
I swore off Airtel a long time ago. Absolutely horrible service provider to be with.
I guess the service seems to be inconsistent. I doubt there would be any utility service provider who would get good feedback from all their users !
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Old 26th October 2017, 16:55   #119
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

I recently changed my wife's Airtel mobile to the 499 retail plan in Oct this year. 499+taxes would come to 560 odd. I got a shocker of a Rs. 1089 bill. They had automatically renewed a booster pack (data plan) of Rs. 300+taxes that I had taken in Mar this year and I had discontinued later.

The airtel coverage is so bad in my area that I get zero data connectivity and would have ended up paying call, data charges and booster pack charges. That was the last straw for me. I wrote a stinker to 121@in.airtel.com and they waived off the booster pack charges today.

I told them that auto renewing a booster pack while doing a change of plan amounts to downright cheating.

Pradeep
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Old 26th October 2017, 17:02   #120
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Re: Airtel cheats me on international data pack

This international roaming thing is scary! I had activated it last month (Rs 2999) and when I came back, I got a SMS stating that the unused amount is something like Rs 35000 for data and voice! I was stunned. When I called 121, they mentioned to ignore the SMS and that it won't be in the bill. Thankfully in the bill I received today, it wasn't there.

Learning: activate it in advance. Upon activation, call 121 to reconfirm (and record the conversation). If possible, also visit the gallery and reconfirm!
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